ARTICLES ABOUT EASTLAND BY DATE - PAGE 3

Of the 844 lives lost when the SS Eastland rolled over in the Chicago River on July 24, 1915, the "little feller," as police called him, came to be the nameless face of the tragedy in the days that followed. Identified five days later by his grandmother and two neighbor boys, Willie Novotny, 7, perished along with his parents and sister aboard the Eastland, which was docked between LaSalle and Clark Streets with 2,570 people aboard when the accident happened 92 years ago. Members of the Eastland Disaster Historical Society and a handful of onlookers commemorated Tuesday's anniversary with a brief ceremony along the river Sunday afternoon.

Libby Hruby did not want people to forget the morning she looked through the porthole of a ship and saw the faces of horror, the looks of people who, in mere minutes, would perish. Mrs. Hruby was 10 years old when Chicago's worst disaster occurred, the capsizing of the SS Eastland in the Chicago River on July 24, 1915. The accident killed 844 people, many of whom were wearing suits and hoop dresses and did not know how to swim. For decades after the disaster, few people who were there wanted to talk about it, fearful of reopening old wounds, survivors recalled.

Libby Hruby did not want people to forget the morning she looked through the porthole of a ship and saw the faces of horror, the looks of people who, in mere minutes, would perish. Mrs. Hruby was 10 years old when Chicago's worst disaster occurred, the capsizing of the SS Eastland in the Chicago River on July 24, 1915. The accident killed 844 people, many of whom were wearing suits and hoop dresses and did not know how to swim. For decades after the disaster, few people who were there wanted to talk about it, fearful of reopening old wounds, survivors recalled.

Libby Hruby can still remember exactly how her sister pulled her out of the SS Eastland and saved her from drowning when the vessel capsized 88 years ago in the Chicago River. "Somehow she got into position and I put my hand up, and she pulled me closer," said Hruby, 98. "Then she pushed me from the back and boosted me over the railing, and I was able to stand up. " Hruby and her sister and brother-in-law were among more than 2,500 passengers and crew members aboard the Eastland on July 24, 1915, on their way to Western Electric Co.'s annual picnic in Michigan City, Ind. The ship pitched and rolled while passengers boarded, finally tipping over and sending 844 people to their deaths.

A legal fight is erupting over scarce artifacts of Chicago's deadliest disaster, the 1915 capsizing of the Eastland cruise ship, in which 844 people died in the Chicago River. The Chicago Maritime Society has filed a lawsuit contending one of its board members, David Nelson, grandson of a rescuer in the disaster, "wrongfully removed" artifacts he brought to the society at 310 S. Racine Ave. The society is asking Cook County Circuit Court to order Nelson and the Wheaton History Center, where the items are, to return them and to pay $10,000 to $50,000 in damages to the society.

Elmer Nelson was working within sight of the Chicago River on July 24, 1915, when the Eastland pleasure cruiser overturned, killing 844 of its estimated 2,500 passengers. The welder spent the next three days cutting holes in the ship's hull to help trapped passengers escape and enable rescuers to recover the bodies of those who didn't. The medal Nelson received for his efforts inspired his grandson, longtime Wheaton resident David Nelson, to collect memorabilia from the Eastland disaster.

On July 24, 1704, the British captured Gibraltar from Spain in the War of Spanish Succession. In 1783 Simon Bolivar, the Latin American patriot, was born in Caracas. In 1847 Mormon leader Brigham Young and his followers arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in present-day Utah. In 1862 Martin Van Buren, the eighth president, died in Kinderhook, N.Y. He was 79. In 1866 Tennessee became the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War. In 1870 the first railroad car from the Pacific Coast reached New York City, ushering in transcontinental train service.

Chicago tours are filled with trivia, some of it obscure enough to stump a native. See how you do on our quiz. 1. Chicago is home to the most-visited tourist spot in the Midwest. What is it? 2. What is the Fire Station on Chicago Avenue credited with doing first? 3. What has the black-and-white sculpture titled "Monument with Standing Beast" in front of the James R. Thompson Center, 100 W. Randolph St., been nicknamed by locals? 4. What is Ceres, the 35-foot-tall statue atop the Board of Trade Building at 141 W. Jackson Blvd.